Similar to yesterday, Microsoft has offered InfoQ a preview of what to expect in today’s keynote at Build 2017. Today’s keynote will feature leading presentations by Terry Myerson, Joe Belfiore, and Alex Kipman. They will be covering Windows 10, Microsoft’s new technologies to expand Windows’ support of iOS and Android, and provide new information on mixed reality devices.
Microsoft recently released the Creators Update to Windows 10, and today they will announce the Fall Creators Update to Windows 10. Microsoft has not provided an exact release date for this new enhancement, explaining that they want to give users a chance to provide feedback and comments before they establish a hard release date.
Joe Belfiore will speak to the new changes coming in the next version of Windows 10 (it is unclear at press time as to what will be in the Fall Update versus what will follow in a later update). Belfiore will introduce the new Windows design system—Microsoft Fluent Design System which had previously been reported as Project Neon. Joining this are several new top line features:
- Timeline – Captures and allows reviewing of all historical activity on a Windows 10 machine.
- "Pickup Where You Left Off" – Start work on one device (Windows 10 / iOS / Android) and resume that work on a different device.
- Clipboard – Exchange information across devices with a wide-area clipboard.
Microsoft is also returning to OneDrive with a feature to enable placeholder files on Windows 10 devices. These placeholders can be manipulated as if they were local files without requiring them to take up local storage space. The OS will then handle transferring the files between the local device and OneDrive without user intervention.
Terry Myerson will also speak to some new developer technologies, including Visual Studio Mobile Center (VSMC), Xamarin Live Player, Project Rome for iOS, .NET Standard for UWP, and XAML Standard 1.0. VSMC represents an expansion of the testing services provided by Xamarin prior to its acquisition by Microsoft. Xamarin Live Player is a new technology designed to make it easier for developers to write apps for iOS and Android devices. The Player App is loaded onto the developer’s device, and is used to host the developer’s new code without requiring the traditional packaging and App store approval process.
Project Rome for iOS is a new SDK for enabling iOS apps to utilize Microsoft’s Graph API. XAML Standard 1.0 is an effort to unify the different XAML-based design Microsoft has so that developers can easily standardize on APIs they know will be available across different platforms. Finally, .NET Standard 2.0 for UWP is coming to enable those apps to benefit from the standard.
InfoQ will be following the Build conference throughout the day, so be sure to check back for updates on these new releases and concepts.
